


Stone

by Drag0nst0rm



Category: The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: Alternate Universe - Powers, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 09:48:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25468792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drag0nst0rm/pseuds/Drag0nst0rm
Summary: Attolia is slowly turning to stone.This is not a metaphor.
Relationships: Attolia | Irene/Eugenides
Comments: 8
Kudos: 80





	Stone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MegMarch1880](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MegMarch1880/gifts).



Her lips were grey and had been ever since she had let poisoned wine press against them. 

They were still soft enough to move as she willed, but when she pressed down on them with a finger in the privacy of her chambers, they were a little less yielding than they should be.

It was not the first time this had happened. It would not be the last.

The Stone Queen, they whispered, and she did nothing to quiet the rumors. She was as strong as stone, as enduring, as unyielding. It was a blessing from above, everyone knew that, and surely it was a sign her reign was blessed.

And what did it matter that no one asked her how it felt to be slowly turning to stone?

The first time she ordered a man who had once been an ally killed slowly, she felt a tightness in her chest that never quite went away.

Attolia wondered if her heart, too, was slowly turning to stone.

She went to the temples every year to perform all the rituals her rank required and to provide the necessary gifts.

She did not pray. She did not ask.

But her heart cried out without her permission.

_Why this, of all the gifts you could have given me?_

She wasn’t the only one who had been blessed, of course, not by far. There was a man in her guard who could summon fire, and there were rumors of a man in Sounis who could fly. There were other, less useful blessings too - she saw a child who could make ants march in any configuration she liked, and a juggler who could change the colors of his trinkets as they flew through the air.

That the Thief of Eddis had been similarly blessed, no one questioned, but no one could quite agree on what his patron might have given him - the ability to walk through walls? To go unseen? To appear wherever he willed in an instant? 

Dite wrote a delightful song with a list of much less reverent suggestions, and though it coaxed a rare smile from Attolia, she could not credit it.

Whatever blessing the thief had, it was powerful and dangerous.

Whatever blessing the thief had, it would not be enough to protect him forever.

She brushed her fingers over her ever stiffening face.

She knew all too well that these blessings could hurt as much as they helped.

When she caught him, she ordered her guards to keep eyes on him at all times. It was a risk just keeping him alive, but the Mede Ambassador had cornered her, and for the sake of her reputation, it was a risk she had to take.

The constant vigilance worked; the thief utterly failed to escape. 

She sent him back to his queen with one hand gone and told herself that she did not feel an ever growing stiffness around her heart.

(There was an ache deep in her limbs when she moved. She felt a coolness deep in her bones that no number of blankets could free her from.

An assassin’s bolt hit her shoulder and bounced off.

When she touched her skin, it felt like touching marble, and she wondered how long it would be before she was just another pretty statue to admire.)

When she saw him slumped over, cup rolling out from under his hand, she froze in place, and wondered if she would ever be able to move again.

But Eddis called out that he only slept, and for the first time, a hint of warmth crept back into her limbs.

It kept happening, with him. When they danced. When they talked. When she thought that perhaps, just perhaps, he had not been lying when he said he loved her.

She still felt the ache deep in her limbs.

But there was warmth there too, and the first hint of pink crept back into her skin.

“If I’m going to marry you,” she said at last, “you have to tell me.”

“Anything,” Eugenides promised from his perch on the table despite the fact that there were plenty of perfectly serviceable chairs.

She pursed her lips but declined to mention it. Not when there was a much more pressing concern. “What were you blessed with?”

He blinked. “You won’t believe me,” he predicted.

He was famed in three countries for his lies.

She hadn’t even heard what he said yet, but she found she believed him already.

Or she did until she heard what he actually had to say, which was:

“I don’t have one.”

“That’s impossible,” she said automatically. After everything he’d done - Everything he’d accomplished -

“It’s true!” he protested, spreading his hands out in an appeal. “Which I think makes me all the more impressive, really.”

She declined to comment on that.

(Six months later, he turned to her in their bedroom and said, “I didn’t lie to you.”

That was not a good beginning.

“I didn’t!” he hurried to say. “I was just - mistaken.”

She arched an eyebrow at him.

“I think I might have a gift after all,” he confessed, and then he tugged off the hook that was covering the stump of his hand.

A stump that looked markedly different than the last time she had seen it.

“I think,” he said cautiously, “I think, given enough time, I can regenerate limbs.” He considered it for a long moment. “It’s too soon to be entirely sure, and I must admit to a great reluctance to experiment.”

For a moment, Irene could hardly breathe.

When she regained the ability, she said, with impossible dryness, “Don’t worry. You are still very impressive.”)

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't decide whether their pantheon was ACTUALLY gifting them with these abilities or if it was actually more of an X-Men situation.
> 
> Then I realized it didn't really matter as regardless of which one it was, they were definitely going to blame it on the first thing at this stage in their history, especially since it's not like they can just ask.
> 
> (Unless, of course, you're Eugenides.)


End file.
